


Myths & Legends

by Smokeycut



Category: DCU (Comics), Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015)
Genre: Vampires, ft. tons and tons of cameos, some gay shit, time skip, we're making a full Justice League babey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 05:48:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19167049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smokeycut/pseuds/Smokeycut
Summary: Four years have passed since the Justice League won over the world's trust. In four years, quite a lot can change. But a threat is coming from the far future, heralded by a young man with incredible speed. In order to save the world yet again, the Justice League will need to expand their roster...





	1. What's Future is Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! I figure that, since DC seems to be done with Gods & Monsters, I might as well give it a sequel. It might be slow going at first, however. But once I finish Rangers With Attitude, I'll try to devote more time to this! In the meantime, I've got two chapters for you!

He tasted ash and death in the air. His feet pounded against cracked pavement, and he dodged and weaved around abandoned cars and skeletons, which had been freed of their flesh long ago. Before he was even born. 

Sometimes, he found himself looking at a skull, and wondering about the face it belonged to. What did they look like, these lost and forgotten souls? What were their names, their dreams, their loves, their dying thoughts? Were they fortunate to have died, rather than to be condemned to a life of running and fighting? 

But today he did not consider who the dead were. Today he ran past them in a blur, lightning arcing behind him. A golden strand of electricity burnt the metal of a station wagon as he raced past it, and the skeleton at the wheel shook, then fell over and crashed into dust. 

A beam of yellow light missed him by a hair, slamming into an upturned Porsche with the force of a cannonball and burning a hole through it instead. He cursed under his breath, then made a hard left, and turned onto Shuster Avenue. The bunker was close. He just had to outrun the stalkers, the hunters, the death-dealers. The killers of the world. Simple. 

He turned again, then again, and again and again. From street to sidestreet to street, dodging the machines with the grace of time. He had their paths and routines memorized, burned into his memory from run after run after run. He knew how to avoid them. Too bad, then, that they had new orders as of eight hours prior. Their paths and routines didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was stopping the young man who ran with the lightning. 

He came to a stop in what used to be Byrne Park. Once lush and beautiful, but now little more than a smoldering wasteland within another wasteland. It made the rest of the city look almost pristine. The rotted earth stank with the stench of dead, decaying, meat as his feet pounded against it. He was so close. He could see the entrance to the bunker, the seams in the ground. His foot slammed down on a small, flat rock, which sank deep into the ground, its true purpose revealed. With the hidden access panel pressed, the earth trembled and shook, before rising up and revealing a steep incline. He slid down inside, and the metal slope led him to the bunker. 

The light from above faded, and he was greeted by cold, clammy darkness. The bunker, a hidden escape beneath several feet of dirt and sediment, sprawled out before him as the incline met solid ground. The young man laughed, and pulled his goggles up onto his forehead. His scarf, which covered his mouth, came down. He let out a snicker as he stopped to catch his breath. They said that no man escapes the manhunters. Once again, he had proven himself the exception to the rule.

There was a light up ahead, and he raced towards it with a small burst of super speed. A keypad was set into a metal wall, and a yellow glow emanated from behind the numbers. With rapid speed, he punched in the access code. 3-5-1-7-7-2-9-0-6-9-2-4-3-5-3-1-7-5-8-4-4-3-2-7-5. 

Easy enough to remember. 

The steel door swung inwards, and he stepped through the threshold, into the lab. It was lit dimly, though still brighter than the area that preceded it. Wires and mechanical components were laid out all along the floor and walls, but in the center of it all stood humanity’s last hope. Not the scientist, clad in dirty green clothing, but the device that sat on his work station. More than a device, really. As the speedster approached, the purple and yellow box let out a soft _ping_ , and the young man smiled.

“Yeah, I missed you too.” 

“How a boy with all the speed in the world can still be late baffles the mind,” David muttered under his breath. 

“I’m 21 years old, Mr Clinton. I think. Not a boy anymore.” He leaned against the table and ran a hand through his mop of thick, reddish-brown hair. Despite his claims, he still wore a boyish smile, and treated the matter at hand with less gravity than a moonwalk. 

David sighed, and glanced nervously at Mother Box. The earth above them shook, and grains of dirt fell to the floor beneath them. The manhunters were closing in. It was their last stand. Their final hour. With each second that ticked by, their death approached ever closer. They had to act fast. 

“Mother Box, have you managed to form a connection with your past self?” David asked. 

_Ping_.

“Are you sure you’re able to access the chronal pathway properly?”

_Ping_.

David looked at the boy, and hesitated a moment. He had looked after the kid for years now, ever since his parents were killed by the manhunters. He was an old man now. His past, researching tachyons for the government, meant little at this point. His knowledge, however, was vital. But he wasn’t a hero. The boy, with luck and determination, could be. So it was up to him to save the world.

“Remember, you need to be careful,” David said gravely, looking deep into his charge’s eyes. “We don’t know where exactly Mother Box’s past self is in the year 2019. She could still be out in space for all we know.”

“Trust me, David, I’ll be fine.” The boy cracked a cocky little smile and tilted his head. His body began to vibrate, eager to run again.

“Then let’s do this.” He grabbed a pair of guns off of the table, and took a deep breath. He had spent the past year and a half building the machinery that Mother Box needed in order to form a link with her younger self. Five months to design the weapons that could harness speed force energy and turn it into blasts not unlike the manhunters’ own destructive rays. 

As he handed the weapons off to his younger companion, David winced at the sound of wrenching metal. His gaze drifted towards the door, and he watched in rapt horror as the steel began to grow hot. 

“Mother Box, activate the boom tube now!” 

**BOOM**.

David Clinton turned to the speedster and opened his mouth. The young man’s breath hitched, however, as his mentor was reduced to a skeleton before his very eyes. Those same eyes narrowed, and he cursed the manhunters once again. His eyes, pricked by hot tears, flicked towards the boom tube, and he whispered his goodbyes as he raced for the portal. 

“Wish me luck, Mother Box.”

********************

The caverns of Mars were colder than one might expect, considering the sight of the red desert above. But Mars was a cold, desolate place. A place without warmth and joy and peace. A place where the imprisoned were confined to the deepest, coldest tunnels, and forced to mine the minerals that the free used for their art and their technology. 

One such prisoner was Ma’alefa’ak. He was neither young, nor old, though he was the first born of his siblings. His arms ached from the repeated swings of a pickaxe against crystal formations on the wall, but a sizable pile of blue crystalline fragments lay at his feet. On another world, he may have been rewarded for such a bounty. On Mars, however, he was given nothing. Not as a prisoner. He felt the urge to tear the pendant from his neck, so that he could take another, less pained form. One more suitable for the task at hand. But he knew that if he removed the inhibitor, the guards would be on him in seconds. So with a grunt of exertion, Ma’alefa’ak swung the pickax again.

He did not know how long he had been in this place. How many moons must have passed since he was brought to the mines by his own twin brother, J’onn. A lawman. A vital cog in this system of forced labor. Ma’alefa’ak pressed a hand against the cool, smooth surface of the crystal formation and breathed a deep, sorrowful sigh. He longed to be free. To sneak away to the surface, as he often did as a child. To breathe in the cool night air, and watch the twinkling stars up above. 

The stars were beautiful to him, though other Martians did not think so. Any flame, even distant ones, frightened his people. But they never frightened Ma’alefa’ak. There was a beauty in fire, he found. A gentle, yet dangerous, passion. Like watching nature itself dance, as orange light licked the darkness. But his love of the fire was also his eternal shame. Unlike the rest of his people, unlike even his twin, Ma’alefa’ak was born without the Martian gift of telepathy. Shunted away from the great, collective consciousness of their people, from the day he was born. His parents, his siblings, his neighbors, all had to speak to him with forced, guttural sounds, rather than the simple, silent beauty of thought. Many did not even bother to communicate with him at all. The guards and other prisoners didn’t. They didn’t even know, he suspected. He learned what to do by watching the others. By keeping a fearful eye on his jailers. 

He swung the pickax again, and his thoughts, isolated and unheard, turned to the last words he ever heard. The words spoken to him by his twin, by J’onn, before he was passed off to the guards of the mines. A single red tear pricked his eye as those words played back in his head.

_”You are my blood no longer, malefic.”_

Malefic. The name his tormentors used when he was a child. A word reserved for the danger of flame. A word that people called him, when they learned of how he appreciated the beauty in the fire. When he heard his brother call him that name, that insult, Ma’alefa’ak’s heart broke in two. 

He was broken from his nightmarish memories by the sounds of gasping. Sounds, actual sounds, made not by work, but by a living being. He thought, at first, that they were his own pained groans, brought on by intense and unending labor. But soon, he realized that they belonged to another. His head twisted around, and he saw that there was nobody watching him at that moment. The guards were focused on another. Nobody would notice, nor would they likely care, if one prisoner were to move deeper into the mines, in search of more crystal to harvest. So Ma’alefa’ak slithered deeper, and deeper still. Past the other prisoners, past deposits of rare gemstones, until he found the gasping man. 

In the dark distance of the cavern, there was a light from above. The light was cast down, in a makeshift spotlight, onto an alien. The being lay on his back, one hand pressed against his side, and the other digging into the dirt beneath him as he struggled not to scream or cry. As Ma’alefa’ak drew closer, he saw that something seeped from the alien’s side, staining his green and black clothing. Viscous purple liquid pooled around the magenta skinned alien, though it was cast in a green glow from the ring on his finger, and the lantern by his side. 

“Do you need a healer?” Ma’alefa’ak asked. His own voice, deep and heady, sounded so alien to himself after all these silent cycles in the mines. 

The spaceman shook his head, and stifled a cry of pain. He beckoned Ma’alefa’ak closer, and the Martian complied. 

“There is no… No need. I will not survive this,” The alien said, his accented voice tinged with bitterness. His lips moved naturally, without much effort, like Ma’alefa’ak’s. He so deeply wished that he could have met another non-telepathic creature in different circumstances. 

“M-My name… My name is Thaal Sinestro…” The alien gasped out. “I am the Green Lantern… Of space sector 28… 2814…”

Ma’alefa’ak stood over the alien, Thaal, and after ripping the crystal power dampener from his own neck, his arms snaked around the dying man’s torso in an attempt to stem the bleeding. Ma’alefa’ak noticed a yellow sickness growing around Thaal’s wound. It looked repulsive. 

“My ring… My ring brought me here… To this location.” Thaal Sinestro shuddered, and pushed himself up onto his elbows with another groan of pain. His voice was smooth, almost gentle to the ears. Ma’alefa’ak enjoyed the sound of his speech. “There is someone here… Someone who possesses great willpower…”

“Willpower?”

“The ring… And the lantern… They require willpower to use… But they must go to a worthy… A worthy successor…” Thaal looked deep into Ma’alefa’ak’s red eyes with his own, colored a piercing yellow-green. “...Are you worthy to join The Green Lantern Corps?”

Ma’alefa’ak did not think twice. He did not consider any others before giving his answer. Even if there was another, someone on Mars who was more worthy, more capable of using it than he… He would not give it to them. The ring, and the lantern, he could sense great power emanating from them. So he looked a dying man in the eyes, and he lied to give him closure before his final moments passed.

“I am worthy.”

Thaal’s lips curled upwards, and he slid the ring from his finger, and pressed it into Ma’alefa’ak’s waiting hand. He whispered his final words, before death, H’ronmeer, took him to the other side. 

“Protect this sector… Protect them… From… Parallax…”

With one final death rattle, the Green Lantern closed his eyes and slept. Ma’alefa’ak’s eyes narrowed, and he reached out to grab the man’s lantern. He slipped the ring onto his finger, and watched as a uniform spread across his green body. A black bodysuit, with white gloves and boots, covered his prison garb. The torso of the uniform, like Sinestro’s, was a bright, bold green. Nearly the same shade as Ma’alefa’ak’s skin, in fact. His fingers curled into a fist, and Ma’alefa’ak looked through the hole in the rock, towards the beautiful Martian sky. 

With but a thought, Ma’alefa’ak’s will carried him to freedom. Past the lower levels, past the free people, past the politicians and the wealthy, and finally, to the surface. He breathed in the cold air and welcomed the sight of the sun’s distant fire. A booming, bellowing laugh escaped his lips, as Ma’alefa’ak tasted freedom at long last. 

Freedom. Freedom to do as he wished. Freedom to get revenge on J’onn for imprisoning him. Freedom to reunite with D’kay, his love, who he had not seen since he was captured. Freedom to liberate all the other prisoners. What to do with freedom…

Above all the desires in his heart, however, one thought rose up. The last words of the man who granted him this freedom. Freedom to fulfill his liberator’s dying request. To do right by him. To protect this sector of space from this evil… This Parallax. 

Too bad then, that Ma’alefa’ak did not know who or what Parallax was. The Martian’s eyes turned to the distance, and he made a decision. He would not burden Mars with his presence any longer. He would find a new home. As Thaal Sinestro requested, he would protect the lives of this sector’s people. But the Martians would have to fend for themselves. 

Ma’alefa’ak looked to his ring, and his lantern, and in a soft, quiet voice, he asked the devices to explain all they knew to him. To tell him about the Green Lanterns, and their purpose, and how to use their power. He listened to their lessons as he flew, climbing closer and closer to his new life.

A green light broke through the atmosphere of Mars, and arced towards its neighbor. Towards Earth.

********************

Light shone brightly in Metropolis, and the summer heat was especially sweltering. Lois Lane sat at an open air cafe on Conway Street, phone turned face up on the table and a glass of water with lemon in her hand. She took a sip and watched the people in Byrne Park across the street. Children playing with their parents. Teenagers taking dogs for walks. Couples holding hands and basking in the sun. It all looked so peaceful, so gentle, so… So normal. 

Normalcy. Lois had to suppress the urge to laugh at that word. Normalcy had vanished the day that the Justice League first appeared, all those years ago. She was in high school when she first saw a news report on Wonder Woman, the alien goddess that had been living on Earth in secret since the 1960s. Then there was Batman. Superman. Gods, monsters, aliens… Normalcy vanished overnight. But on days like this, the brunette reporter could almost forget how abnormal the world had become. 

“Miss Lane. Once again, you beat me here.” Lois turned her head, and saw Wonder Woman standing before her. The redheaded New God pulled out a chair and took a seat across from her at the table. Even though she wore a simple white dress, she was unmistakable as a member of the Justice League. No human being had such an otherworldly beautiful face. She held in her hand a purple and yellow box, with intricate, alien designs along its six surfaces. Gently, the New God placed it on the table, where it let out a small pinging noise.

“I like to be early,” Lois said flatly. She crossed her legs, and pulled up a recording app on her phone. “Are you ready to begin the interview, or do you want to order lunch first?”

Wonder Woman smiled, and turned to look at an approaching waitress. She ordered a lemonade and a BLT, while Lois ordered a vegan wrap. Lois regarded the New God with an icy stare, even as Bekka smiled fondly back. 

“We still haven’t talked about why you came back to Earth,” Lois said, after pressing the button that began her phone’s recording. 

“Haven’t we?” Bekka slung an arm over the back of her chair and closed her eyes, allowing the sunlight to wash over her. Her copper hair almost seemed to catch on fire in the light. 

“We haven’t. And I can’t help but feel that you’re dodging the question.” Lois’ eyes pierced right through Bekka, but the hero didn’t seem to pay it any mind. “This is our third weekly interview since you returned to Earth. So far, you’ve only talked to me about your opinion of the Justice League’s new policy of _not_ jumping straight to murder…”

“It’s a no-killing policy, and it was put in place by Superman and Batman,” Bekka interjected. “I’m happy to comply with it, though.” Lois still looked rather bemused, and continued to press the matter.

“I want to know why you decided to come back to Earth. Hell, the League still hasn’t told the public why you _left_ four years ago.”

Bekka sighed, and clenched her jaw. Her drink was set down on the table, and she slowly traced a finger around the rim of the glass. Her eyes drifted over to Mother Box. It wasn't the same one that existed in the hilt of her sword. Rather, it was a second Mother Box, which came with her when she returned to Earth at the beginning of the year. “I had… Unfinished business back home.”

“What kind of unfinished business?” Lois’ harsh gaze softened ever so slightly.

“My grandfather was a monster of the worst kind,” Bekka said in a low, terse voice. “He had the blood of countless people on his hands. All of my people did. They were responsible for a genocide of an entire planet. I went home to avenge those that they murdered.”

Lois said nothing in response. She swallowed, and looked away. She felt, suddenly, that she may have overstepped her bounds. But another part of her spoke up, a part of her that believed such knowledge belonged to the whole world. That wanted nothing to be kept hidden. So she nodded her head, and looked back at Bekka with a hardened look in her eye. 

“So you’re the last of your kind, then?”

Bekka’s face was unreadable as she answered, all emotion locked away for the time being. “No. Unlike my grandfather, I spared those who did not wish to fight. Highfather was cruel, but even he deserved a chance at the mercy that he refused to give my husband’s people.”

“Thank you for being honest,” Lois said quietly. Bekka cracked the slightest of smiles. 

“I think that’s the first time you’ve ever taken one of us at our word.”

Lois smiled in turn. “A lot has changed while you were gone, Wonder Woman. I even had an interview with Batman once.”

“Now that’s surprising,” Bekka said with a gentle laugh. The idea of Kirk actually sitting down and answering questions, without running away in an introverted panic, seemed too good to be true. She went to say something more, when Mother Box pinged again, a loud noise rang out, and stormy winds ripped through the street.

**BOOM**.

Out of the boom tube came a red and yellow streaked blur, trailed by golden lightning and laser fire. The portal shunted itself closed, having successfully deposited its passenger. A young man, no more than 25, stood before them, whipping his head around wildly. He was dressed in dirty, dark red and yellow clothing, with a pair of goggles on his head and a lightning patterned scarf around his neck. His long auburn hair blew gently in the summer breeze, and he had a pair of high tech guns holstered at his sides. 

Bekka stood, and summoned her armor and sword as she prepared to face off against the speedster. The young man held up his hands and protested, in a voice that was weary and strained. 

“Whoa whoa whoa! Not here to fight you!”

“How did you activate that boom tube? Where did you get a Mother Box?” Wonder Woman demanded, holding her sword at the man’s throat. 

“I mean… It wasn’t my Mother Box. Technically it was yours,” He explained. He pulled off his scarf and goggles, and extended a gloved hand. “Bart Allen. I’m from the future. Nice to meetcha.”


	2. Shadows In The Night

Gotham was a quiet, more eerie place after the sun dipped beneath the horizon. When the sky went black, and clouds covered the stars and the moon, everyone became a little more fretful. A little more scared. A little more closed off from one another. Night was, after all, when the monsters roamed. A pair of teenagers had been abducted at sunset, and the police were all but powerless to find the man responsible. They didn’t know that, like all of his previous victims, they had been taken to an abandoned film set on the outskirts of the city.

Brother Blood held a long, curving knife in his hand, and pressed it against the throat of one of his captives. A teenage girl, by the name of Stephanie. She wriggled against her restraints and whimpered in fear, as tears pricked her eyes and sent her mascara running. But her captor just laughed, in a ragged, throaty voice. His breath smelled of cigarettes and stale coffee, and he was so close to drawing blood. On the set of a monster movie, an all too human monster was ready to take her life.

But hope came in the form of a different sort of monster. Stephanie could see his shadow, projected onto the wall behind the maniac in red robes. Her friend, Harper, who was tied to the chair behind her, had a more direct view of their savior. She reached back, as much as her bound wrists would allow, and touched Stephanie’s fingers in an attempt to calm her. Everything was going to be alright. She hoped. 

Brother Blood was the last to notice the shadowy figure. He didn’t realize he was there until a pair of boots slammed into him and broke his collarbone in half. Instantly, Batman was on top of the kidnapper, his clawed fingers at Brother Blood’s throat. But rather than fearing for his life, a sense of elation filled Blood.

“Finally!” He cried out with a beatific smile. “I’ve been waiting for you to come! I’m ready to join you!”

Batman looked at Brother Blood incredulously. He could hardly believe the man’s reaction. In one fluid movement, the vampire rose to his feet, and lifted Blood into the air by his robes. He hissed, and demanded answers.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m ready to join you! To be blooded, and join your coven!” Brother Blood laughed, despite the sharp, intense pain in his collar. “I’ve been leaving offerings to you, and now you’re here! We can feed on these girls _together_ , once you turn me.”

Kirk sneered in disgust, and threw Brother Blood into the nearest wall. The wall gave way, and he tumbled back behind the set. He looked to the girls, and saw the fear in their eyes. Silently, he approached them. They weren’t sure what to think of him now. Would he feed on them, like Blood had said? Had they known Kirk Langstrom, known how gentle he truly was, they’d know they had nothing to fear from the Batman. But he proved his true nature to them by slicing through their bonds in one fluid movement. 

“Go home,” He told them, in a deep, slow, almost hypnotic voice. “Get some rest. Forget about all of this, if possible. Be normal kids. I’m sorry you were ever caught up in this nightmare.”

As they ran away, holding each other and thankful to live another day, Batman turned his focus back to the vermin who lay on the ground, wincing from the spreading fracture he had been given. Kirk leaned over him and hissed again, an instinct he never bothered to suppress. 

“Joseph Blackfire. I’ve been following you. Tracking you. I know what kind of monster you are.” He looked into Blood’s eyes, and saw who he really was in them. A sad, pathetic man, who thought women’s lives were worth less than his own twisted desire to become like Kirk. It made Kirk sick. 

“I’m… I’m like _you_ ,” Blackfire insisted. “A-A creature of the night! A stalker of flesh! If anyone in this city deserves to be sired by you, it’s me!”

Blooded. Sired. Turned. All words that he had heard before. Not often, thankfully, but enough times to be sick of hearing them. Mostly it was just fan mail sent to the Justice League’s tower. But this time it had gone farther than that. Why anyone would want to become a vampire, a bloodthirsty monster like himself, Kirk didn’t know. He did know that he could feed on Blackfire, and nobody would blame him for it. In fact, it’d be almost karmic, to drain the man of his blood and leave him a corpse. But even that would give Blackfire what he wanted, in a way. 

He kicked the murderer in the face, knocking him unconscious. Someone like Blackfire was too vile for even him to feed on. Filth always tasted like filth. So he left him there, bound by the same ropes he had previously used to tie up Stephanie and Harper, and called the police to let them know where they could find their kidnapper.

As Kirk left the film set, he breathed in the cold night air and let out a deep sigh. Despite not giving in to his urges, despite sparing Blackfire’s life, he still had to feed. He needed to get home, where a package of B Positive was ready to be devoured. With a slight shrug, a pair of leathery bat wings unfurled from his back, and flapped out to their full length. It felt good to stretch his wings, especially after a night like this one. He kicked off the ground and took flight, right as he got a call on the comm device in his cowl. 

“Any luck with that Brother Blood creep?” Hernan’s voice crackled in his ear, filtered through radio waves and the wind blowing in the air. 

“Just another vampire fanboy. I took care of him.” Kirk’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion, like most days. But still, Hernan could sense something was wrong. A tiny little waver, a hesitation before Kirk answered.  
“How’d he taste?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I left him for the police to pick up.”

“You know, I doubt the press would complain if you just took a nibble every so often,” Hernan teased. He fell a bit quiet afterwards, then switched to a gentler tone. “We haven’t seen you around the tower lately. Sure you’re alright?”

“Thanks for your concern, but I’m fine,” Kirk said, as he touched down on the patio of his house. His wings closed up and retracted back inside his costume. He opened the door and slipped inside, entering the kitchen. “I’ve just been a bit busy in Gotham these days.”

“Seems like we’re getting more and more villains nowadays, huh?”

“Bekka says it’s more likely that it just seems that way, since we aren’t killing them anymore.”

“Hm. Maybe. Speaking of Bekka, actually… Has she called you yet?”

Kirk paused, as he opened the fridge and eyed a few bags of plasma. “No, she hasn’t. Is anything wrong?”

“Let’s just say we’ve got a visitor. One you really ought to meet.” There was a certain sense of exhaustion in Hernan’s voice, like that of a father who had been wrangling children all day. “He showed up yesterday, and he won’t tell us why he’s here until all of us are together. So hurry on back to Metropolis when you get the chance, alright?”

“Alright. I’ll fly over tomorrow,” Kirk promised. He ended the call before goodbyes could be said, then slumped into the chair at the kitchen table and ripped open a bag of blood with one clawed finger. 

He drained the blood quickly, sating his hunger for the time being. It was cold, and it went down like slime. Too thick, and so devoid of flavor. Like drinking something overly processed and stripped of all soul. It had been four long years since he last fed on another human being. It was hard, but ever since losing Will and Tina, he had sworn to be better than his base impulses. But still, he felt an urge to prey on a living subject. It just wasn’t the same like this. It just wasn’t right…

********************

In Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, there was an ARGUS base. Formerly used by the US Army, it had been retrofitted, and most of its staff replaced, once ARGUS was formed in 2012, in response to the presence of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Deep within the base, underground and behind several twisting hallways, lay a brig. In that brig was not a mutineer or a conscientious objector. Rather, sitting behind the steel door, on a bed that strained beneath his gargantuan weight, was a man named Nanaue. 

He didn’t look like a man, of course. That was why they kept him here. Civilians had been telling stories about a local legend for roughly 20 years. A fishman, who came up from the sea and tried to keep his distance from normal folk. An 8 foot tall, musclebound titan, with the head and fin of a great white shark. 

They called him Aquaman, but his name was Nanaue. 

He had been apprehended by ARGUS just a few months ago, when they caught him watching the base from the water. A few soldiers found what appeared to be his home not far away, on the surface. A small tent, with a ring of rocks and a pile of firewood, alongside some camping equipment and a journal. They kept the journal for research, and destroyed the rest. 

So now Nanaue spent his days in solitary confinement, under the guise of holding him for “spying on a military base”. It didn’t matter how many times he told them that he was just curious about the new people. It didn’t matter that he insisted he had been born in Honolulu. They treated him like a threat. A super villain that they had nipped in the bud. He leaned his head against the cold, grey concrete of the wall and sighed. He longed to feel water filtered through his gills again. It had been so long since he had last gotten to swim in the deep blue ocean that he loved. 

“How’s the family, Paul?” He called out, hoping for an answer. A smile crept across his face when he got one, even though it was terse and short.

“Still divorced, fishman.” 

He liked the days when Paul Kirk was his guard. He was the only one that talked to him. That small connection, that small piece of actual human interaction, was something that Nanaue treasured. It made him feel human. 

“I’m sure you’ll win him back. Ya just gotta show him you care.”

There was a short, wry laugh on the other side of the door. But as Paul fell quiet, Nanaue spotted something out of the corner of his eye. 

He turned, and saw what appeared to be a ghostly, transparent image of a woman’s face, peering out of the wall of his cell. Her hair was long, thick and curly. Her face was young. Cute, in fact. There was a hint of a mischievous smile on her face, and she began to step into the room. Her bare feet never touched the ground, instead hovering just an inch above the floor. She cast no shadow, and breathed no air. If he wasn’t part shark, Nanaue would have assumed she was a hallucination. But anything was possible, he supposed. 

“You real?” He whispered, careful not to let his guard overhear. 

She nodded her head, and a deft hand brushed along her long, flowing skirts. “Real as real can be,” She said, in a voice that wasn’t a voice. It was more like he was hearing her words in his mind, not his ears. Inaudible, but perfectly understandable. 

“Who are you?” He asked, his voice still low and hesitant. 

“You can call me Doctor Fate,” She said with a fond, playful smile.

“You’re way too young to be a doctor, kid,” Nanaue chuckled. 

“It’s more of a title, not an actual doctorate. But that’s beside the point.” She crossed the room, and ran her hand through the wall like one would run a hand through a stream of water. She still seemed more like a vision than a solid being, and that little action just drove it home even further. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but the fact is… You’re here for a reason, Nanaue.”

“That so…” A bitter look crossed his face. What he wouldn’t give to leave this cell, to just go back home. Hell, just to have one more swim. 

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how awful it must be to be stuck in this room. But please believe me,” She urged, folding her hands in front of her lap. “I’ve seen what’s coming, Nanaue. You being here, it’s important. Beyond important. It’s vital to the safety of this world.”

“And why is that? What good comes from me being held captive in this shit hole? I’d never hurt anyone. I _like_ people. That’s why I try not to bother them...”

She reached out, and he could almost feel her caress his cheek. Almost. He closed his eyes and pretended, though. Pretended, just for a moment, that someone was there with him, touching him, grounding him. But she wasn’t really there. He was still, physically speaking, alone. 

“Just give it time, Nanaue. One day, not far from now… You’re going to save the Justice League.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, don't forget to kudos and comment!

**Author's Note:**

> Please, kudos and comment!


End file.
